Welcome on the website ICOS-France

The global emissions of greenhouse gases by human activities have been accelerating continuously since the industrial revolution, making the atmospheric concentration in CO2 exceeding 400ppm in 2017. Maintaining the elevation of the global mean temperature below +2°C, as the parties of the Paris conference commit themselves, implies a reduction in anthropogenic greenhouse gases emissions by 40 to 70%. An accurate monitoring of the greenhouse gas balance at the global level is urgently needed in order to measure and verify the impacts of policy reduction on the earth climate system.

The ICOS Research Infrastructure is the result of a coordinated action of the scientific community to face this challenge. ICOS includes monitoring networks of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, oceans and continents, more specifically the carbon dioxide (ecosystems, fossil fuels, cement industry), methane (cattle, natural gas, agriculture) and nitrous oxide (agriculture, fossil fuels, fires).

ICOS includes more than 500 scientists from 17 European countries: it is a key component of the European Roadmap of Research infrastructure and a Super Large Research Instrument (Très Grand Instrument de Recherche – TGIR) of the French national research agenda.

There are also three open positions in the research group of Mari Pihlatie, two postdocs and one PhD student to study the role of trees in methane and nitrous oxide exchange of forests. The projects are funded by European Research Council (ERC) starting grant and Helsinki Institute of Life Science (HiLIFE). More info below, or directly from Mari Pihlatie.

ICOS, Integrated Carbon Observation System, announces that its first greenhouse gas measurement stations have been certified for standardized data production. ICOS data reveals the carbon emissions and sinks on European level, which is essential for predicting and mitigating climate change.